Haydn - Symphony 82 [Dutoit-Sinfonietta De Montreal]The Swiss Conductor Charles Dutoit has been the main Conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal for 25 years [1977-2002], of which this stripped down Sinfonietta comes from.
Symphony 82 is the first of the Paris Symphonies, nicknamed 'The Bear', i truly enjoy Haydn's first movements, and in this Symphony it's a wonderful powerhouse of surging momentum, at first hearing it seems quite complex, lots of changes of speed and colour, little nuggets of ideas all sewn together seamlessly, and certainly lots going on, it's hard to explain it all, basically it can be broken down into four building blocks, the first and second are exact repetitions of each other, the third is a variation on the opening two, and the last is the same as the first two, but certain different 'endings' creep in to make it a nice finale, it's the opening that is the key, after quicksilver string fanfares and a waltz [0:00-0:10], there's some nice fanfares by everyone, with the timpani making its presence felt, nice brass towards the end [0:10-0:24], there's very quick fleet violins that surge the music forward [0:30-1:01], nice lots of repetitions to drum things into your head and feet, including a perfect replica of the first 2 minutes in the next two [2:06-4:12], i like the way right at the end the opening fanfare changes into the closing fanfare [7:15-7:35], a very magical move.
Here's Leonidas Kavakos conducting the first movement on YouTube, he's a Violinist, i've never seen him conduct before, he doesn't use a baton, and the way he swings his arms around in figure eights in the waltzy bits is quite novel, but i like his conducting.
